Portions of this article were first published anonymously in 'Republican
News', December 16th, 1978. The smuggled out article recalls how the spirit
of republican defiance grew within him, and is a semi-autobiographical account.

BOBBY SANDS was born in 1954 in Rathcoole, a predominantly loyalist district
of north Belfast. His twenty-seventh birthday fell on the ninth day of his
sixty-six-day hunger strike. His sisters Marcella, one year younger, and
Bernadette, were born in April 1955 and November 1958, respectively. All
three lived their early years at Abbots Cross in the Newtownabbey area of
north Belfast. A second son, John, now nineteen, was born to their parents
John and Rosaleen, now both aged 57, in June 1962.

The sectarian realities of ghetto life materialised early in Bobby's life
when at the age of ten his family were forced to move home owing to loyalist
intimidation even as early as 1962. Bobby recalled his mother speaking of
the troubled times which occurred during her childhood; 'Although I never
really under stood what internment was or who the 'Specials' were, I grew
to regard them as symbols of evil '.

Of this time Bobby himself later wrote: ''I was only a working-class boy
from a Nationalist ghetto, but it is repression that creates the revolutionary
spirit of freedom. I shall not settle until I achieve liberation of my country,
until Ireland becomes a sovereign, independent socialist republic. ''

When Bobby was sixteen years old he started work as an apprentice coach builder
and joined the National Union of Vehicle Builders and the ATGWU. In an article
printed in 'An Phoblacht/Republican News' on April 4th, 1981, Bobby recalled:
''Starting work, although frightening at first became alright, especially
with the reward at the end of the week. Dances and clothes, girls and a few
shillings to spend, opened up a whole new world to me.''

Bobby's background, experiences and ambitions did not differ greatly from
that of the average ghetto youth. Then came 1968 and the events which were
to change his life. Bobby had served two years of his apprenticeship when
he was intimidated out of his job. His sister Bernadette recalls: "Bobby
went to work one morning and these fellows were standing there cleaning guns.
One fellow said to him, 'Do you see these here, well if you don't go you'll
get this' then Bobby also found a note in his lunch-box telling him to get
out."

In June 1972, the family were intimidated out of their home in Doonbeg Drive,
Rathcoole and moved into the newly built Twinbrook estate on the fringe of
nationalist West Belfast. Bernadette again recalled: We had suffered intimidation
for about eighteen months before we were actually put out. We had always
been used to having Protestant friends. Bobby had gone around with Catholics
and Protestants, but it ended up when everything erupted, that the friends
he went about with for years were the same ones who helped to put his family
out of their home.

As well as being intimidated out of his job and his home being under threat
Bobby also suffered personal attacks from the loyalists.

At eighteen Bobby joined the Republican Movement. Bernadette says: .. 'he
was just at the age when he was beginning to become aware of things happening
around him. He more or less just said right, this is where I'm going to take
up. A couple of his cousins had been arrested and interned. Booby felt that
he should get involved and start doing something. '

Bobby himself wrote. "My life now centered around sleepless nights and stand-bys
dodging the Brits and calming nerves to go out on operations. But the people
stood by us. The people not only opened the doors of their homes to lend
us a hand but they opened their hearts to us. I learned that without the
people we could not survive and I knew that I owed them everything.

In October 1972, he was arrested. Four handguns were found in a house he
was staying in and he was charged with possession. He spent the next three
years in the cages of Long Kesh where he had political prisoner status. During
this time Bobby read widely and taught himself Irish which he was later to
teach the other blanket men in the H-Blocks.

Released in 1976 Bobby returned to his family in Twinbrook. He reported back
to his local unit and straight back into the continuing struggle: 'Quite
a lot of things had changed some parts of the ghettos had completely disappeared
and others were in the process of being removed. The war was still forging
ahead although tactics and strategy had changed. The British government was
now seeking to 'Ulsterise' the war which included the attempted criminalisation
of the IRA and attempted normalisation of the war situation.'

Bobby set himself to work tackling the social issues which affected the Twinbrook
area. Here he became a community activist. According to Bernadette, 'When
he got out of jail that first time our estate had no Green Cross, no Sinn
Fein, nor anything like that. He was involved in the Tenants' Association...
He got the black taxis to run to Twinbrook because the bus service at that
time was inadequate. It got to the stage where people were coming to the
door looking for Bobby to put up ramps on the roads in case cars were going
too fast and would knock the children down.'

Within six months Bobby was arrested again. There had been a bomb attack
on the Balmoral Furniture Company at Dunmurry, followed by a gun-battle in
which two men were wounded. Bobby was in a car near the scene with three
other young men. The RUC captured them and found a revolver in the car.

The six men were taken to Castlereagh and were subjected to brutal interrogations
for six days. Bobby refused to answer any questions during his interrogation,
except his name, age and address.

In a ninety-six verse poem written in 1980, entitled 'The Crime of Castlereagh',
Bobby tells of his experiences in Castlereagh and his fears and thoughts
at the time.

They came and came their job the same

In relays N'er they stopped.

'Just sign the line!' They shrieked each time

And beat me 'till I dropped.

They tortured me quite viciously

They threw me through the air.

It got so bad it seemed I had

Been beat beyond repair.

The days expired and no one tired,

Except of course the prey,

And knew they well that time would tell

Each dirty trick they laid on thick

For no one heard or saw,

Who dares to say in Castlereagh

The 'police' would break the law!

He was held on remand for eleven months until his trial in September 1977.
As at his previous trial he refused to recognise the court.

The judge admitted there was no evidence to link Bobby, or the other three
young men with him, to the bombing. So the four of them were sentenced to
fourteen years each for possession of the one revolver.

Bobby spent the first twenty-two days of his sentence in solitary confinement,
'on the boards' in Crumlin Road jail. For fifteen of those days he was completely
naked. He was moved to the H-Blocks and joined the blanket protest. He began
to write for Republican News and then after February 1979 for the newly-merged
An Phobhacht/Republican News under the pen-name, 'Marcella', his sister's
name. His articles and letters, in minute handwriting, like all communications
from the H-Blocks, were smuggled out on tiny pieces of toilet paper.

He wrote: 'The days were long and lonely. The sudden and total deprivation
of such basic human necessities as exercise and fresh air, association with
other people, my own clothes and things like newspapers, radio, cigarettes
books and a host of other things, made my life very hard.'

Bobby became PRO for the blanket men and was in constant confrontation with
the prison authorities which resulted in several spells of solitary confinement.
In the H-Blocks, beatings, long periods in the punishment cells, starvation
diets and torture were commonplace as the prison authorities, with the full
knowledge and consent of the British administration, imposed a harsh and
brutal regime on the prisoners in their attempts to break the prisoners'
resistance to criminalisation.

The H-Blocks became the battlefield in which the republican spirit of resistance
met head-on all the inhumanities that the British could perpetrate. The
republican spirit prevailed and in April 1978 in protest against systematic
ill-treatment when they went to the toilets or got showered, the H-Block
prisoners refused to wash or slop-out. They were joined in this no-wash protest
by the women in Armagh jail in February 1980 when they were subjected to
similar harassment.

On October 27th, 1980, following the breakdown of talks between British direct
ruler in the North, Humphrey Atkins, and Cardinal O Fiaich, the Irish Catholic
primate, seven prisoners in the H-Blocks began a hunger strike. Bobby volunteered
for the fast but instead he succeeded, as O/C, Brendan Hughes, who went on
hunger-strike.

During the hunger-strike he was given political recognition by the prison
authorities. The day after a senior British official visited the hunger-strikers,
Bobby was brought half a mile in a prison van from H3 to the prison hospital
to visit them. Subsequently he was allowed several meetings with Brendan
Hughes. He was not involved in the decision to end the hunger-strike which
was taken by the seven men alone. But later that night he was taken to meet
them and was allowed to visit republican prison leaders in H-Blocks 4, 5
and 6.

On December 19th, 1980, Bobby issued a statement that the prisoners would
not wear prison-issue clothing nor do prison work. He then began negotiations
with the prison governor, Stanley Hilditch, for a step-by-step de-escalation
of the protest.

But the prisoners' efforts were rebuffed by the authorities: 'We discovered
that our good will and flexibility were in vain,' wrote Bobby. It was made
abundantly clear during one of my co-operation' meetings with prison officials
that strict conformity was required. which in essence meant acceptance of
criminal status.

In the H-Blocks the British saw the opportunity to defeat the IRA by
criminalising Irish freedom fighters but the blanketmen, perhaps more than
those on the outside, appreciated before anyone else the grave repercussions,
and so they fought.

Bobby volunteered to lead the new hunger strike. He saw it as a microcosm
of the way the Brits were treating Ireland historically and presently, Bobby
realised that someone would have to die to win political status.

He insisted on starting two weeks in front of the others so that perhaps
his death could secure the five demands and save their lives. For the first
seventeen days of the hunger strike Bobby kept a secret diary in which he
wrote his thoughts and views, mostly in English but occasionally breaking
into Gaelic. He had no fear of death and saw the hunger-strike as something
much larger than the five demands and as having major repercussions for British
rule in Ireland. The diary was written on toilet paper in biro pen and had
to be hidden, mostly carried inside Bobby's own body. During those first
seventeen days Bobby lost a total of sixteen pounds weight and on Monday,
March 23rd, he was moved to the prison hospital.

On March 30th, he was nominated as candidate for the Fermanagh and South
Tyrone by-election caused by the sudden death of Frank Maguire, an independent
MP who supported the prisoners' cause.

The next morning, day thirty-one, of his hunger-strike, he was visited by
Owen Carron who acted as his election agent. Owen told of that first visit
'Instead of meeting that young man of the poster with long hair and a fresh
face, even at that time when Bobby wasn't too bad he was radically changed.
He was very thin and bony and his hair was cut short.'

Bobby had no illusions with regard to his election victory. His reaction
was not one of over-optimism. After the result was announced Owen visited
Bobby. "He had already heard the result on the radio. He was in good form
alright but he always used to keep saying, 'In my position you can't afford
to be optimistic.' In other words, he didn't take it that because he'd won
an election that his life would be saved. He thought that the Brits would
need their pound of flesh. I think he was always working on the premise that
he would have to die."

At 1.17 a.m. on Tuesday, May 5th, having completed sixty-five days on
hunger-strike, Bobby Sands MP, died in the H-Block prison hospital at Long
Kesh. Bobby was a truly unique person whose loss is great and immeasurable.
He never gave himself a moment to spare. He lived his life energetically,
dedicated to his people and to the republican cause, eventually offering
up his life in a conscious effort to further that cause and the cause of
those with whom he had shared almost eight years of his adult life. In his
own words: "of course can be murdered but I remain what I am, a political
POW and no-one, not even the British, can change that."